Shadowboxing

Another weekend...another long weekend...and more snow. Not as much snow as last week but enough to necessitate cleaning off the cars...again. It seems like we have had snow every few days since the beginning of the year and the piles of snow in some parking lots have easily surpassed ten feet. Our flamingo has been buried for a couple of weeks now and, after briefly poking his head out on the afternoon of Groundhog Day, he has disappeared into a snowbank. Maybe our first sign of Spring won't be seeing a robin or seeing a crocus bloom. It just may be seeing our flamingo emerge from the snow!

We compared our lists of potential stops on Friday night and we had a few more to choose from than in recent weeks. One stood out above the rest. For there, amongst the pictures of a rather boring sale, was the one item that caught our eye...an amazing shadow box. We have a few shadow boxes already but that doesn't mean we don't have room for another,  especially this one. We really, really liked the looks of this one.  The sale began at 9 am and it was located about 30 minutes from our house. We knew we would have to get there before the sale opened and hope to be the first people interested in this piece. This meant beating the dealers to the prize. Of course, we also had to hope that it was in as good condition as it appeared to be in the picture...and that the price was right.

We set our alarms for 7 am. We normally never set an alarm for Saturday morning and just get up when we wake up (which is always by 8 am anyway) but we had to give this shadow box our best shot. Getting up by 7 am would give us each a chance to take a shower, get one cup of caffeine into our system, brush the overnight snow off the cars and still give us time to be near the front of the line.

 We arrived 30 minutes before the start of the sale and everything seemed to be going according to plan except for one thing...there was no line. Well, there was but the line consisted of just one person and we could tell that she had absolutely no interest in the one thing we coveted. By the time the door opened, there were about eight people behind us and we were told that there was quite a long line at another sale nearby (which was on our list for later). Were all the dealers at the other sale? Did they have no interest in this shadow box? Did anyone other than us have any interest in this shadow box? We would soon find out the answer to the last question. At 10 am, the door would open and all of us on line would enter the house. All we had was a few second head start on them. 

When the door opened, we moved in with one goal in mind...to get there first...and we did. Okay, well, we seemed to be the only ones there who were interested in the shadow box but look at all the dramatic effect we added to your reading! Anyway, there it was! It was as beautiful as it was in the picture and in perfect condition. The owner of the Tag Sale company presented his price. Rob, wearing his best "I'm sort of interested but I don't HAVE to have this" face, submitted a counter offer of one third of his asking price. The owner came back with one half of the original price and the deal was made. We got what we were after.

We searched the rest of the house and, although it had a mounted pencil sharpener in the basement (usually a good sign), there was nothing else for us here but that didn't matter because we came home with...

...a new shadow box! 

We went for a celebratory breakfast and then continued our journey to the other stops on our list. There were only three more stops and they were all in the general area.

Stops #2 and #3 were quick stops. Both were run by the family of the deceased and both advertised having a lifetime of "accumulation". The first of these had a few older items but none that interested us very much and the sale was "eBayed out". There were various printouts from eBay showing how much each item for sale had recently fetched on eBay. Their asking price was just a notch lower. The second of the these sales had even less of interest to us. Onward to our last stop!

Stop #4 had the dreaded line. This was the sale that we were told had the line in the morning. There was still a line. The sale was run by a Tag Sale company that has lines at all of their sales simply because they only let a few people in at a time. They don't have too many sales but, when they do, they are usually worthwhile. So...we waited. One of the people who left the house recognized us and remembered our passion for Christmas and told us that the basement should be our first target. After 30 minutes on line, we entered the house and made our way straight to the basement. 

Downstairs was this great old set of children's appliances. We did not get them but what we did get was lots of Christmas stuff! The basement had boxes of great Christmas stuff that looked like they had been completely overlooked by those who came before us. 

There was also a bar downstairs that Monica posed behind. It looked, based on the wood paneling, to have been added in the 1970's. We found some great cocktail swizzle sticks behind that bar and, when combined with the boxful of Christmas items we had already found, we were happy with our trip to the basement!

A search of the main floor helped us fill another box...many cookbooks, some glassware, some salt and pepper shakers and other miscellaneous items. It was a good stop and the brothers who run this Tag Sale company are always happy to see us and always give us a good price. 

In addition to the shadow box, here are some of the other items that found a new home in our house:

A record

Some cookbooks

Some more cookbooks

A few more cookbooks

Even a few more cookbooks!

A Christmas apron

A vintage chicken um...um...apron? Top curtain? The world may never know! 

A Christmas stocking and a set of elves hanging from a "Noel" sign

Honeycomb Santas and angels and a pair of "sporting" Santas

Christmas candy dishes, a cardboard Santa and other miscellaneous Christmas items

A Napco Santa decanter, a knee hugger elf, a wind-up musical Santa (with balloons), a pair of plastic "treasure toy" candy containers from Rosen, a trio of ceramic Santas and some other Christmas stuff.

A tea rest, a sign for our lawn (if the snow ever disappears), cocktail swizzle sticks and a pile of unused Tupperware Party postcards from the 1950's

A pair of hillbilly elves, a ceramic flamingo, a pair of Hyena salt and pepper shakers, a pair of turkey salt and pepper shakers and a pair of old orange juice glasses (with smiling oranges)

It was a great day of saling in the midst of our second extended weekend in a row

Friday was Valentine's Day and while neither of us had the day off, we had Friday night to spend together....

 ...and Monday was President's Day which afforded us an extra day to our weekend.

We hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day and a great weekend; a wish coming from our heart!